Radio Station WHMI 93.5 FM – Livingston County, Michigan News, Weather, Traffic, Sports, School News & Best Classic Hit

(WASHINGTON) – For more than a century, from the early 1800s through the 1960s, Native children were removed from their tribes — sometimes by force from their homes — to attend government-run assimilationist boarding schools. On Friday afternoon, President Joe Biden will issue a formal apology from the U.S. government to the affected communities.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, says her grandparents and mother were among those sent to these schools: ‘I understand the history,’ she told host Brad Mielke on Friday’s episode of “Start Here,” the flagship daily news podcast ABC News.

“The children ended up in these boarding schools. They were demolished. Their hair was cut off. They were forbidden to speak their native language, and if they did, they were beaten,” Haaland said.

Haaland went on a trip to the reservation to hear from tribal elders and descendants of people who attended those schools as part of a federal investigation into government-run residential school programs and reported physical and emotional abuse, and death this took place.

She also checked on those who never came home, and I found it hundreds of children were buried in unmarked places far from their homes.

As part of the investigation, Haaland has made a list of recommendations, the first of which is to issue a formal acknowledgment and apology from the US government.

President Biden told White House reporters on Thursday that he was going to Arizona “to do something that should have been done a long time ago.”

“To formally apologize to the people of India for the way we have treated their children for so many years,” he said. “That’s why I’m going. That’s why I’m heading west.

Haaland told Start Here that an apology is the first step toward finding a cure for trauma and pain.

“Frankly, Native American history is American history, so I think it’s important for survivors and descendants to feel seen.”

ABC News’ Justin Gomez contributed to this report.